Evidence of meeting #30 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Bragdon. Your time is up.
We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for six minutes or less, please.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. It's fascinating. I wish we had a lot more time to chat with you.
Mr. Beamish, I must say that I'm old too, and sometimes last week is a challenge, so there you go.
I'll start with you, Ms. Schmitt. Explain briefly, if you can, the difference between an S1 and an S0 smolt.
4:05 p.m.
President, Omega Pacific Hatchery Inc.
With regard to an S0, most salmon spawn in the fall, and they emerge from the gravel in the spring at half a gram. In most systems in the lower reaches, the fry will go to the estuaries and into the ocean right away, and that's called an S0.
In the upper reaches, the fish remain one year or longer in fresh water before they migrate to the ocean, and that's an S1.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I see.
Is it possible to put S1s where S0s used to be, and they would exhibit the same trait?
4:05 p.m.
President, Omega Pacific Hatchery Inc.
All fish have the ability to go out as S0s, S1s or S2s. What dictates that is genetics, but so do food availability, water temperature and development.
Just listen to this one interesting thing: In the farming industry—I farmed Chinook for many years—when we entered S0 smolts, every farm had issues keeping them alive and required antibiotics. If they re-entered an S1 smolt, that was a non-issue; we'd get 96% survival.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'll have to leave it at that because I do have to move on to other questions. I appreciate that very much.
Mr. Beamish, I'll come back to you.
It's our understanding that in their first couple of years, the salmon stay fairly close to the shore. They're not out in the deep water. Given that there's probably not an awful lot we can do about deep water conditions, what about the inshore conditions for these young salmon? What can we do there that would improve their chances of survival?
4:10 p.m.
Research Scientist (Retired), As an Individual
Over the last couple of years, a colleague and I have been privately organizing expeditions into the Gulf of Alaska in the winter to actually understand what regulates salmon when they're out in the open ocean.
What you just said is that the coastal environment does contain some salmon, but really, most of them move off the coast into the more open ocean. If they survive the first winter, they more or less continue to survive until they return. There's some—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I need to know something. The fish from inshore go out into the open water. Do we know the population of the fish leaving the inshore area and going out to the water? If too few fish are getting far into the deep ocean, that would say an awful lot about where we might have to focus our attention, given that there's not a lot we can do about the deep ocean.
4:10 p.m.
Research Scientist (Retired), As an Individual
A short answer is that you're right. What we have seen in the research we have done in the last 10 years is exactly what you said: It's the coastal ocean survival that is probably more or less now regulating the abundance of salmon coming back.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you for that, sir.
I know all of you could go on at great length. If we miss something or you're not able to finish a thought that you really wanted to stretch out, please write to us, because, again, our time is usually pretty short.
Mr. Hurwitz, we've heard a lot about hatcheries. We've heard pros and cons and sometimes conflicting evidence.
Do we know enough to come up with a really good collaboratively developed hatchery strategy for the restoration of salmon stocks on the coast?
4:10 p.m.
Hatchery Manager, Thornton Creek Enhancement Society
I think about the work we're doing in our area. Science is growing in leaps and bounds. To speak to what Dick Beamish just said, the research we're doing is looking at bottlenecks in the estuary by using very advanced PIT-tagging technology. We'll be able to track these fish right out in the nearshore waters, and—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'm sorry, sir, but again, time is short. The question is, do we know enough, yes or no?
4:10 p.m.
Hatchery Manager, Thornton Creek Enhancement Society
I think we're starting to, yes. We're starting to find those bottlenecks, and certainly everybody is speaking to them.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay. Fair enough.
One of the things we have to do is think about the rather large amount of money that the federal government is willing to invest. Obviously we want those investments to be wise and we want them to produce results. There's always a temptation for people to say that we have to have a study or a committee, and then when all is said and done, there's more said than done. That's what we need to avoid.
Mr. Johnson, you said that when you were talking in your community, you went out looking for answers to some of the initial misgivings about open-net aquaculture. Where did you get the answers from, and over time did those answers change?
4:10 p.m.
President, Nuu-chah-nulth Seafood Limited Partnership
We engaged directly with the fish farm that was within our territory. We engaged with someone who was specifically there to answer our questions.
What was the second part of that question?
4:10 p.m.
President, Nuu-chah-nulth Seafood Limited Partnership
No, the answers didn't change. As a matter of fact, we started to see that maybe we were missing the boat and that we needed to start creating some different criteria for what we're going to do.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
May 10th, 2021 / 4:10 p.m.
Bloc
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Denis Trudel, and I am the member of Parliament for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, which is on the other end of the country. The issue of salmon seems to be a bit unique here, in Quebec. All I know about salmon is that my father-in-law fishes it in the beautiful Matapédia River in the Gaspé.
I found the witnesses' comments very interesting. It's a little concerning to hear that there have been fewer catches in the last year in Canada. There were some interesting topics such as shared responsibility and degradation of salmon habitat. One witness suggested changing the salmon ecosystem altogether. I think these concepts are very important.
I would like to ask a broader question and get a response from each witness.
Since the beginning of this committee study, witnesses have stressed the importance of good consultation between the department and the various stakeholders, such as our witnesses, and scientists. A budget was recently tabled.
Has the government's concerted effort been reflected in the budget tabled last month?
Mr. Hurwitz, would you like to start?
4:15 p.m.
Hatchery Manager, Thornton Creek Enhancement Society
There's lots of chatter, but have we been consulted as a hatchery? No, not really. We are the boots on the ground. We're the data collectors. We're feeding information into these think tanks.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc